Feb 19, 2007 - Allen Lim
Based on the course profile and our initial preview of the route for Stage 1 in early December, we really thought that the race would break up before entering Santa Rosa. Instead, we had nearly a full pack coming into the finishing circuits making for a tricky and dangerous finish. Unfortunately, most of the team got caught behind a crash with just two laps to go. Danny, Tom and Will pulled some amazing moves to stay out of the crash while the others got caught behind. Pat McCarty hit the pavement, but beyond a bit of road rash is doing fine.
The major factor in today's race was the strong head wind along Pacific Coast Highway after the climb over Mt. Tamalpais all the way to Bodega Bay. That headwind kept the pack together and riders relatively fresh by the time they hit the final climb on Coleman Valley Road. Although riding in a headwind is really tough, drafting in one is relatively easy. That is, you get more power savings drafting in a head wind relative to what you might be doing on the front compared to drafting in no wind or a tail wind. As a result, it's really hard to get a break away to stick but pretty easy to just sit in the pack.
On Coleman Valley Road, Tom Peterson who was competing for the King of the Mountain Jersey, went for it, getting second over the top of the climb and securing the KOM Jersey. That effort resulted in a new personal best power output of 447 Watts for 5 minutes and 400 Watts for 10 minutes. It also caused the pack to fracture and set Tom off in a breakaway with 4 other Pro Tour companions. That breakaway was the most significant of the day for us and reached a maximum gap of 1:15 (min:sec). But with the flat approach into Santa Rosa and a full field, the break failed.
Still we ended up taking the KOM Jersey (Tom), keeping the Best Young Rider Jersey (Taylor), and holding on to second place (Jason). So long story short, today didn't really shake up the GC at all leaving us at the end of the day essentially where we started. But tomorrow will be an extremely challenging day, and if there's any amount of cross wind from Winters to Sacramento, we may have a significant change in the overall.